The love of the deal bought two Gastonia sisters back to the work world.

The laughter common inside the thrift store manned by Mary Ball and Myrtle Callahan, along with a curious name on the sign outside, might keep them here.

“I like to talk people into buying something,” Ball says.

She is only half kidding.

Jammin’ Thrift Shop has been around for nearly a year at 2325 S. York Road in Gastonia. The store takes its name from Ball’s devotion to music. In the early days of the shop, she and a former partner planned jam sessions inside.

These days the floor space is too filled with shoes, clothes, furniture, baby gear and kitchen gadgets to make room for live music. Ball makes do with a regular open mic night and karaoke evening, which she hosts at the Gaston County Senior Center in Dallas.

She and her sister spend their days peddling their wares. Callahan was already making her own sales, pairing stuffed animals with candy to sell in her brothers’ convenience stores. So Ball hit her up for the partnership

Their brother is Jay King of Kingsway stores.

“We’re a family of salesmen,” says Ball. “We’re work-a-holics. The whole family is.”

The trait might come from the meager finances of the family as they grew up, first in the mountains of western North Carolina and then with grandparents in Gastonia.

“There were seven kids and about the only thing we had was love,” says Ball.

Later, she ran a market and fast-food eatery, Ball’s Produce and Grill, next door to the thrift shop for 27 years. Back then the Jammin’ Thrift Shop was her house.

She and husband Albert founded the grill next door in 1977. It quickly became a platform for Ball’s promotional skills.

Ball’s Produce and Grill was home to the Fat Albert burger, named jokingly for her husband. He was a big man, Ball says, and hesitant about the namesake beef patty at first. But he liked to make money as much as his wife.

“And those sold like hotcakes,” Ball says now. “They sold better than hotcakes.”

Eight years ago, she retired from the grill to care for her ailing husband. After he died, she couldn’t imagine returning to Ball’s Produce and Grill without her husband and business partner.

She leased the grill and rented the house instead.

When the idea of a thrift shop took root, she came back to the location and completely remodeled the house. It took a year to complete all the necessary renovations.

And a hefty budget, says Ball, who admits she won’t make the money back in her first year in sales.

“I didn’t have to come back to work,” she said. “I more or less did it to be around the public again and have something to do.”